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Right-Wing Anti-Choice Groups Featherbedding On the Government Dime? Who Would Ever Suggest Such a Thing?

Sat, 2010-01-23 18:11 — figleaf

Given my family’s personal experiences with “crisis pregnancy” centers I have just about zero patience with this sort of crap, so check out the dirt Jessica Valenti of Feministing has dug up in Virginia.

I’m just shocked that Heartbeat International – the organization that gets the majority of money made from Virginia’s “Choose Life” license plates – is possibly misusing funds. The anti-choice organizations gets $15 from the $25 plates, and distributes the money to crisis pregnancy centers. Or just random anti-choice buddies, it’s become kinda unclear.

One pregnancy center listed by several anti-abortion groups as a certified clinic — the Mattingly Test Center in Loudoun County — is a two-story brick house owned by Linda Mattingly, a former director at Care Net, a Leesburg-based pregnancy network. There are no signs in front indicating it is a clinic, the Internal Revenue Service has no record of it as a 503© nonprofit, and it is not registered as a corporation with the Virginia secretary of state.
A woman who answered the door of the Ashburn house last week said pregnancy services had been, but no longer were, provided there. She did not give her name before closing the door. The Washington Post tried to reach Mattingly by phone, but messages were not returned.

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The report [from NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia] also outlines the standard bullshit that crisis pregnancy centers peddle in: false medical information, non-medically trained staff, and scare tactics like telling women they could become a “crack whore in prison” if they get an abortion.

Read the quote in context here.

I think I’ve said this before in the context of abstinence-only “education” but it sort of stands to reason that organizations that know bloody well they’re providing no honest, legitimate, meaningful pregnancy crisis services would tend not to take their “responsibility” to provide those non-services very seriously.

Especially since anyone inside the anti-choice noise machine who demanded accountability for funds received from automatic government funding would just be inviting scrutiny of any non-services they themselves might be getting paid to provide.

Lessons From Unlikely Places: Letterman and Responsibility vs. Morality

Fri, 2009-10-02 11:26 — figleaf

Fran Langum at Blue Gal is just awesome in her introduction to the equally awesome David Letterman.

Sanford, Vitter, and Ensign need two hours in a Powerpoint presentation on “How to Deal with Your Sex Scandal” with Dave. The slides include, 1. You might lose your job, and probably should. 2. Get a sense of humor. 3. Don’t be an effin’ hypocrite.

Do it like this:

The things you don’t do are:

Decide to be the point person to criticize ACORN and prostitution. (Vitter)

Break the law in order to make your staffer, who is also your mistress’s husband go away. (Ensign)

And above all, you boys, don’t belong to a political party that thinks abstinence only education health policy is a good idea.

‘Cause that’s a joke. And it isn’t funny.

She said it here.

I’d use a different word than awesome to describe having sex with one’s employees, but I thoroughly admire Letterman for owning up to it, for defying someone else who sought to exploit it, for not having his partner(s) into stand-by-your-man charades, and for acknowledging and lamenting the potential consequences but neither whining about nor denying responsibility for those consequences.

This Ensign Not Exactly Flying Proudly

Wed, 2009-06-17 10:10 — figleaf

David M. Herszenhorn of NYT’s The Caucus reports that

Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, on Tuesday admitted that he had an extramarital affair with a member of his campaign staff.

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During college at Colorado State University, he became a born-again Christian and he and his wife, Darlene, were active in the Promise Keepers, an evangelical group.

Read the quote in context here.

For what its worth Sen. Ensign didn’t support Rick Santorum’s homophobic “Defense of Marriage” amendment to the constitution (which during the high tide of the Republican dominance of the government was the stick that beat so many otherwise progressive politicians like Sen. Clinton into voting for the under-the-circumstances less onerous, but still odious alternative, the Defense of Marriage Act.)

Update The NYT article was evidently mistaken… or maybe just not looking at the right time frame. In 2004 Ensign’s office issued a press release that said “protecting [marriage] is, in my mind, worth the extraordinary step of amending our constitution.” (Via ThinkProgress.)

Also for what it’s worth, during the so-called Monica Lewinsky scandal when Ensign was running against Sen. Harry Reid in 1998 David Rosenbaum, also from the New York Times, wrote

No one knows how the scandal involving President Clinton will affect the race. A Democratic poll this month showed that Mr. Clinton is seen in a worse light by voters here than he is nationally.

Mr. Ensign has called for the President to resign. But he does not bring up the matter unless he is asked, and he is rarely asked.

He said it here.

The good news? Ensign may be conservative but he appears to be fairly live and let live about people’s personal affairs… and, I guess, Affairs.

On the other hand he did call for President Clinton to resign over his peccadilloes and so, I suppose, if he was honest he’d resign from his office as well.

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight says

Remember, senators don’t have to govern, or to preside over any legislature. They don’t have any particular use for political capital, and other than their ability to be re-elected, they don’t have any particular reason to popular. That’s why Eliot Spitzer resigned and David Vitter (whom many Louisanans seem to have forgiven) didn’t. It’s why Roland Burris is still in the Senate.

He said it here.

Final thought though, goes to Matthew Yglesias, reflecting a few weeks ago on the different standards progressives and right-wing extremists are held to by constituents, peers, and the press, said

Logically speaking, since there’s only one of the two parties that puts a very high premium on the idea that state regulation of individual sexual behavior should be the main role of government, these allegations should be more damaging to Republicans. Hypocrisy on the part of the media is part of the story. But part of the issue, I think, is just partisan and ideological solidarity. A politician can survive a great deal if his co-partisans are willing to stand by him, and conservatives are much more inclined to stand by their man than are progressives.

He said it.

I too wish Ensign would either resign or else not resign but apologize instead for having sided so often with prigs in his party.

I’m not holding my breath for either.

See also Echidne who (half-seriously, she says) asks a serious question

Why does Senator Ensign need to apologize publicly for his affair but not for having belonged to Promise Keepers?

She said it here.

Good question, E.

Morality, Messages, and the Pseudo-Innocence of Determining "Fates Worse Than Death" for *Others* Than Yourself

Sat, 2009-04-25 08:46 — figleaf

Sungold of Kittywampus has a beautiful post about sex work, the recently murdered ‘sexy massage’ worker Julissa Brissman, erstwhile sex-worker prosecutor Eliot Spitzer, and social attitudes about all of the above… and all framed neatly with appropriate and still-fresh quotes by Emma Goldman from 99 years ago.

The whole post is great but a one paragraph description of her student’s discussion nicely summarizes the fallacy of pseudo-innocence: the state of believing one’s self above or removed from a problem while benefitting from or outright contributing to it. (Emphasis mine.)

About half of my students worried about the moral consequences of legalizing prostitution. They thought it sent the message that adultery was okay. They feared previously faithful men would be snared on the streets. They fretted that more women would be drawn into the profession. Most of them weren’t any more comfortable with decriminalization as a solution, even though most of them also recognized that prostitutes would be safer if they weren’t hiding from the law.

She said it here.

Never mind that former Governor Spitzer was able to indulge his… probably non-fetishistic, adulterous thrill of non-negotiated sexual choking only because he knew the women he hired could not report him to police, social service agencies, or even his family without facing even bigger repercussions themselves. Never mind that the escort service he booked them through may also have been complicit in providing insufficient preparation for the employees they sent to him.

And never mind that Julissa Brissman is very publicly dead only because (emphasis mine)

Prosecutors believe Markoff launched his robbery spree to finance a gambling habit and preyed on those offering erotic services because he thought they wouldn’t report the crimes.

Source: New York Daily News

The great thing about Sungold’s paragraph is that it can be put back into classroom discussions and essay questions with an invitation to unravel the hidden assumptions that permit “moral” concerns about sending hypothetical “messages” to trump what one would think were much deeper, and more deeply held moral concerns about protecting the lives and safety of actual people.

Now Even More Doubly-Standardy Than You Thought

Mon, 2009-03-30 20:32 — figleaf

Jill of Feministe says

Now that boys may be getting vaccinated for HPV, we’re suddenly worried about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy – and not a peep about how vaccination may turn boys all slutty.

Read the quote in context here.

(The Washington Post article she links to is pretty sharply worded as well.)

Ever wonder why people never peep about things that turn boys all slutty? I actually do. Because, seriously, even if they really cared about girl virginity they have to have noticed they’re way into diminishing-returns territory on pressuring girls. (And no, I’m not talking about that purity-ring-auxiliary thing where boys are encouraged to protect girl chastity. I’m talking about talking boys into protecting their chastity.) But nope, no dice, they don’t worry about boys turning all slutty.

Ever wonder why people never peeped about girls and safety and effectiveness? Even though, y’know, the whole theoretical reason for opposing the HPV vaccine for girls and women was to “keep them safe” because they’re such delicate flowers? I wonder about that too.

Creationists, Evolutionary Psychologists Share Same Faulty Gene Via Common Ancestor?

Tue, 2009-03-10 18:01 — figleaf

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon takes on the barkingly stupid but highly predictable assertions Ken Blackwell during his appearance on a Chris Matthews segment about abortion and contraception.

Ken Blackwell has nothing at all to add to this, of course. He just screams about how he and his are going to pray away female sexuality, and it’s just a matter of time. It’s mildly useful that Blackwell openly admits and downright brags about how he and his are basically against women having sex and that the only form of birth control they’ll tolerate is the pill you hold between your knees.

...

Blackwell’s argument against the existence of non-procreative sexual intercourse is actually kind of funny, though.  He comes right out and says we should abstain as a way to differentiate ourselves from other animals.  In my experience, however, wearing clothes, speaking, and walking upright tend to be enough to signal to other humans that I am not a lemur or a newt.

It’s all good, you can read it here.

Not to mention that we also differentiate ourselves from the animals by…

... having non-procreative sex!!!!

Sheesh!

By the way, drawing all sorts of conclusions about mate selection among other totally disparate species would be a lot easier if the creationists were right and we could just pray away all interest in non-procreative sex.

Pretzel Illogic of Abstinence-Only Ideology

Tue, 2009-02-17 22:36 — figleaf

Britni of Oh My God, That Britni’s Shameless gets gently ruthless about abstinence-only education being a cruel, murderous prank perpetrated against young people in order to make other people feel the illusion of vicarious virtue**.

Bristol Palin is proof that abstinence-only education doesn’t work. The best part about it is that her mother’s entire sex education platform is for abstinence-only education, yet her daughter is a perfect example of why it’s ineffective. And Bristol, I think, is trying to say that as much as she can. By saying “abstinence is unrealistic” she really means that “teenagers are going to have sex anyway.” And by saying “don’t end up like me” she is implying that you “shouldn’t get pregnant at 17.”

Q: How do we prevent pregnancy when teenagers are going to be having sex anyway? 
A: By teaching teenagers how to prevent pregnancy. 

I know, I know. That sounds so logical and obvious. But that right there, abstinence-only education advocates, is why your way just won’t work. The kids are gonna fuck. So please, let’s teach them how to do it safely. Bristol Palin is totally on board for comprehensive sex ed, regardless of what her mother thinks.

Not only did [Palin’s mother, Governor Sarah Palin] not equip her with the tools to have safe sex because she is for abstinence-only education, but she is pro-life and therefore wouldn’t allow Bristol to abort the kid that she didn’t want and ended up pregnant with accidentally. Those right-wingers make total sense. I’m not gonna teach you how not to get pregnant, and then I’m not gonna let you abort the kid you don’t want and aren’t ready to raise.

Read the quote in context here.

Can’t put it much more clearly, or bluntly than that.

[** “Gee figleaf, how do you really feel about that? —fl]

If the Initiative Can Legally Taketh Away Marriage, the Initiative Can Also Giveth Away Contact Info

Fri, 2009-01-30 08:27 — figleaf

Tony Infanti of Feminist Law Professors (now with a new URL, ) says

In a blow to hypocrisy, a federal judge has rejected the attempt by Prop. 8 supporters to shield the names of those who donated in support of the measure from release to the public. I refer to this as a hypocritical position on the part of the Prop. 8 supporters because the law that makes the identities of those who contribute $100 or more to initiative campaigns a matter of public record was itself enacted through the initiative process by California voters in 1974. In defending Prop. 8 after its passage, supporters of the measure have argued that the courts should defer to the will of the people; however, it seems that the will of the people means little to them–and, in their view, should mean little to the courts–when the will of the people affects Prop. 8 supporters (rather than the LGBT community) adversely.

Read the quote in context here.

To be honest I am a little creeped out not by reporting requirements but by how close to invasion of privacy it gets. But it’s a compromise I’m willing to swallow in a political landscape so easily overrun by Astroturf.

Still, any lawyer compassless enough to make that specific argument — that initiative-passed law should be disregarded for the benefit of proponents of initiative-passed laws — probably ought to be disbarred.

Furthermore it’s hard to sympathize about the privacy rights of those who’s initiative was exclusively about interfering with other people’s to make private decisions.

Two Wrongs One Wrong at the Heart of Conservatism

Wed, 2008-12-03 13:21 — figleaf

Via Hugo Schwyzer comes a pretty dead-on analysis of conservatism in practice. Answering why so many Americans vote against gay-rights initiatives on the one hand but also against anti-abortion initiatives on the other, Edward Feser says (emphasis mine.)

Some heterosexuals who have at least a grudging respect for traditional sexual morality are more keen to see it respected by others than to practice it themselves. (Think e.g. of the secularized Beltway conservative think-tank or journalist type who heartily endorses pragmatic Burkean arguments for the social utility of stigmas against fornication and the like, but who nevertheless lives with his girlfriend.) Hence, while it costs such people little or nothing personally to vote against “same-sex marriage,” limitations on abortion might put a crimp on their own lifestyle should their less-than-conservative personal sexual behavior “punish them with a baby.”

He said it here.

Those two bits — desiring not to practice discipline one’s self but to see it practiced instead by others; and regarding babies, or at least other people’s babies, as punishment — seem like the defining twin fallacies of conservatism going back at least as far as the Biblical Pharisees.

But wait, did I say twin fallacies? My mistake. That’s actually only one fallacy, the latter being merely an application of the former.

Difference Between "Pro-Choice" and "Pro-Life" #000001

Mon, 2008-11-17 09:34 — figleaf

Jill of Feministe illustrates the difference.

Restricting reproductive freedom is wrong in all directions — and China is a good example of what happens when you allow the state the right to decide how many children women can (and can’t) have.

A STORM of international protest is building over a Chinese ruling that a Muslim Uighur woman who is six months pregnant must have an abortion or lose her home.

Chinese authorities have ordered Arzigul Tursun, who is 26 weeks pregnant, to abort her unborn child because she has two other children.

She is under watch at the Municipal Watergate Hospital in Yining in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, which is populated heavily with Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority. Supporters are concerned a forced abortion at such a late stage could threaten Arzigul’s health.

Health concerns should be taken seriously, but that doesn’t get to the heart of the problem. This would be wrong even if the procedure was guaranteed to be safe.

Read the quote in context here.

In the late 1970s or early 1980s, after Roe v. Wade was handed down, abortion rights were generally accepted, and access to women’s health services including abortion service was well distributed two groups made two market-driven decisions.

Anti-abortion activists, recognizing they were getting very little traction in their crusades, made the conscious decision to rebrand themselves as “pro-life.” They weren’t pro-life at all, of course — they were as absolutely indifferent to miscarriage, stillbirth, life-threatening conditions of pregnancy, labor, or delivery, post-delivery death, maternal mortality, industrially distributed environmental abortifacents and tetrogens, and, say, the continuing employment of Joe Arpaio as they are today. But by lying about it, and by disguising their lies as “concern for the unborn” they were able to reframe the debate in what turned out to be a very effective way. And because they were liars their rebranding made no, zero, none difference at all in their overall outlook and, since they didn’t believe it themselves their label as a concept hasn’t expanded into more ways of saving lives. (Making shit up about ordinary hormonal contraceptives being “abortifacents” doesn’t meet the criteria for “expanded.”)

As a result, just a year or two later, once-complacent abortion-rights activists, who had never wanted people to have abortions in the first place in preference of, oh, say, avoiding unplanned, unwanted pregnancy in the first place, made a marketing decision of their own and began calling themselves “pro-choice. The difference being that since they weren’t and aren’t lying neither effort nor cognitive dissonance is required to oppose forced abortion as bitterly as forced pregnancy.

Taking the concept a bit further, Jill notes a “compromise” suggestion from the “pro-life” camp that again illustrates the contrast.

One of the only comments on the first linked article is particularly telling about the “pro-life” mentality:

Cant she just give the baby up for adoption????????

Because forcibly removing a wanted baby from a new mother is the solution here. The concern for life really does end at birth.

Choosing to have a baby is choosing to have a baby, not choosing to risk your health and life, endure three trimesters of pregnancy and the post-partum “fourth trimester” so somebody else can the baby you wanted? Yeah, right.

Bottom line: “Pro-life” activists were and remain only anti-abortion. “Pro-choice” activists meanwhile, are and always have been pro-choice!

Update: Also via Jill, Jessica of Jezebel says

It’s been less than a month since the staunchly pro-choice Barack Obama has been elected President, and already anti-abortion advocates are reassessing their goals. Some anti-choicers are taking a practical route, according to the Washington Post, supporting legislation that may cut down on the need for abortion, like providing poor women with health care, child care, and money for education. However, the hard core anti-choicers see support for such social programs as “selling out.” “We don’t think it’s really genuine,” Joe Scheidler, founder of the Pro-Life Action League, tells the Post. “You don’t have to have a lot of social programs to cut down on abortions.” In fact, uncompromising abortion foes are actively against these bills, for reasons that don’t entirely make sense.

“You don’t work to limit the murder of innocent victims. You work to stop it,” Judie Brown, the president of the American Life League adds.

Read the quote in context here.

They’re entitled to their opinion that abortion equals murder, but if that’s really the only thing they care about then they’re still liars to claim they’re “pro-life.” And if people like Joe Scheidler and Judie Brown are indifferent to every other single factor affecting pre- and postnatal and maternal death (they are), and if they are in opposition to every effort to mitigate either those conditions or to mitigate any need for abortion in the first place (they are), and if in fact they fund and promote “crisis pregnancy” centers who’s practices actually increase the risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, and maternal and infant death (they do) then they’re liars and worse. (They do, therefore they are.)

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